


oh, i'm gonna carry you home

by santiagone



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because apparently I can't help myself, F/M, Post-Scarif, Romance, in which Cassian and Jyn go to Lah'mu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 12:44:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9491447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santiagone/pseuds/santiagone
Summary: She used to be so angry at him, she thinks. She still is, in a way. He'd been prepared to shoot her father, he’d been prepared to let that little girl die on Jedha. But he didn't, and he's different, and sometimes when she looks at him it's like she's seeing herself, staring straight into a distorted mirror. She's still angry at him. But it's the sort of anger she can’t live without.The rebellion isn't over, and that means neither are they. But for now, they'll rest in the only house she ever called a home. For now, they'll heal.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have two valentine gifts to finish, and yet... here i am. being emotionally destroyed. this probably isn't realistic or logical in terms of star wars but... hey. creative licenses?  
> title and lyrics are from Forest Fire — Brighton

_I'm gonna carry your bones_  
_I'm gonna carry them all_  
_I'm gonna carry you home_

.

.

.

It's early morning when she finally plucks up enough courage to creep into the cockpit. Cassian’s at the controls, bathed in pale sunlight, riddled in bruises and grime. He grimaces every now and then, discomfort pulling his lips down a fraction. His wounds, probably, and yet he still looks…

“Where are we?”

He glances at her, fingers clutching the controls a little too tightly. “Does it matter?”

“Only if our destination doesn't have a medical facility.” It's meant as a joke - dry, like most of her humour - but he doesn't say anything, and she pauses. “Cassian.”

“There's Imperials crawling across every planet with a decent medical facility.”

“Not every,” she argues, and he scoffs.

“And if there isn't, there are spies. Informants. This wasn't like before, Jyn. We can't go back to the Alliance, we can't show our faces in the galaxy ever again. After what we did—”

“I know what we did,” she says sharply, and immediately regrets it. Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze. She doesn't even know if they made it off Scarif, made it clear of the flames, the _carnage_. “But word can't have spread to every corner of the galaxy. We can find a niche in the woodwork somewhere, if we’re careful with identities. We can make it work.”

“And how high of a probability do you think there is of us pulling it off?” he asks, and Jyn falls silent. They both know what K2 would say. _19.7 percent chance of survival_ . But the odds had been even lower for Scarif, and they'd still made it out. _Mostly_. Mostly out.

“You can't stay like this,” she says instead. “You're in pain, and there's nothing on the ship to help you.”

“I'll be fine.”

 _You won’t_ , she thinks, eyeing the way he's carefully stiff in his chair, the bruises and scabs littering his arms. Some old, some new. A patchwork quilt of Cassian Andor, stitched together by the war he's been fighting since he was six. _You won't be fine_ . None of them are, none of them have ever been. She hasn't been good, properly _good_ , since Saw abandoned her at sixteen, since she watched Lyra Erso crumple to the ground.

Her hand goes to her kyber crystal instinctively. “I know where to go,” she says.

“Good,” he says, not one ounce of doubt creeping into his voice, and she can't help the small, slow upturn of her lips.

“Good.”

 

.

.

.

 

Jyn helps him stumble his way off the ship, hands encircled around his waist, both of them pretending like they don't notice his sharp intake of breath with every step.

“We’re in the outer rim,” he states, arm draped around her shoulder, fingers warm, but digging in a little too hard. “One moon. Rings of silica.”

“We’re on Lah’mu,” she answers, ignoring the way the name makes her mouth go dry. She leads them, staggering, across the hectares of wildly overgrown flora, down the path that shouldn't be as familiar as it is, not after this long.

“The Erso homestead,” he says, and she jerks her head to him in surprise, slipping from his grip for half a second before powering on again, each step stronger than before despite the way her leg, her bones, are _screaming_ at her.

“You did your research, then.”

“I’m a captain,” Cassian grunts like that explains it, “and it was in the file.”

 _Of course it was_ , she realises. The Alliance have tabs on the entire galaxy—or at least just the people who may end up being useful to them.

“I lived here for four years,” she says quietly, but still rough around the edges. She's not used to telling people things, but she's dragging them both, half dead, towards the tiny house in the near distance, and he's _Cassian_ , and he deserves to know. Maybe not even deserve, but she _wants_ him to know, in that dangerous way that she knows can only mean trouble. “Until I was eight.”

“Krennic—” he rasps out, “they know about this planet.”

“That was years ago. They wouldn't bother to check the outer rims, wouldn't bother to check back here. It's too stupid, even for me,” she says and hopes to the Force and back she's right.

Cassian cracks a half smile then, and she feels her throat close up as she heaves him to the front step, and carefully lets him go. He balances himself heavily against the wall as she jiggles with the lock. He hands her the blaster when it doesn't work, and she fires to blow the lock.

“Poor security,” Cassian observes, but his breathing is too shallow for a quip like that.

“A good door doesn't matter much when stormtroopers come knocking,” she responds, shouldering his weight again, rushing him inside and shoving the door back into place. _Just in case_. She staggers under his weight and her injuries, finally, and they sink to the floor amidst the dust and the abandoned memories, but it's okay. She likes the way he leans his whole weight on her, likes that he trusts her enough to support them like that. It's a survivor's way of showing you care, she thinks. She'd do the same, if it were her.

He curls his hand into her hair, his other fisting in her shirt for dear life, and she commits the look in his eyes to memory. It's what she's learned to do; memorise things in case she needs them again. Memorise things in case they’re taken away from her.

She moves, finally, but his grip is strong for an injured man.

“Jyn,” he says, pulling at her shirt gently. She stumbles to her feet, fingers gently winding his hands free, tracing the scars left behind from fights better than these.

“Water,” she tells him. “I'm looking for water.”

She does better than that. Water, which she tests before handing it to him, a blanket covered in layers of dust, the medkit under the sink that she remembers being pointed out to her when she was young. It feels surreal, being back here. The seat is half pulled out at the table, things scattered about like the occupants have just gone for a holiday. She presses the memories away, collapses back down next to Cassian instead.

“Drink,” she orders, turning to rifle through the medkit. There's plenty of things, most of which she has no idea how to use, and a lot that won't be nearly enough to heal Cassian completely. But it’ll do, for now.

“Why are we here?” Cassian asks as she lifts up his shirt, presses a bacta patch there and tries to stop her fingers from shaking.

“First place I could think of. We can go somewhere else, once you’re better.”

“I mean, how did we make it off Scarif? Why?” He’s fixed unwaveringly on her, even though she can't bring herself to look him in the eye.

“Because the rebellion isn't over,” she answers finally, “and that means neither are we.”

 

.

.

.

 

Cassian wakes up just as she's sorting out the ration packs from the ship, calculating just how long they can go. A week or so. Two, if they’re careful. Maybe longer, if she fasts, but it's not promising.

“Feel any better?” she nods at him, handing him some water.

He shrugs. “Maybe. How long have I been out?”

“Several hours. You woke up once or twice.” She doesn't mention the nightmares, because she’ll have them too, soon as she can allow herself sleep.

“Any sign of tails?”

“Sky’s clear,” she confirms. _Not yet_ , is what she doesn't say.

Cassian nods, fumbles with the cup and grimaces as he pulls himself upright. “No word from the others?”

Jyn reaches up for her kyber crystal and doesn't say anything. Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze. K-2S0. The swell of brave soldiers who’d followed her into battle because she'd convinced them it was the right thing to do. If they perished, it's her fault. And if all their efforts lead to nothing, then…

“You're thinking too hard,” says Cassian.

She glances at him. “Like you’re not.”

She used to be so angry at him, she thinks. She still is, in a way. He'd been prepared to shoot her father, he’d been prepared to let that little girl die on Jedha. But he didn't, and he's different, and sometimes when she looks at him it's like she's seeing herself, staring straight into a distorted mirror. She's still angry at him. But it's the sort of anger she can’t live without.

“Did you use some of that treatment on your leg?” he asks, and she blinks for a moment. Sometimes she doesn't realise how closely he pays attention. Maybe it's because he's a spy. Maybe it's just her.

“A little,” she concedes, because she's not entirely stupid. “But we need most of it for you.”

“I don't need it,” he says. _Liar_.

“You need it more than me.”

He opens his mouth, and she cuts him off, partly to distract him, partly because she actually means it.

“Thanks.”

Cassian looks surprised then, and she allows her lips to curve. An expression that is unfamiliar to him, she's sure.

“Why? What for?”

“Just…” She pauses then, seeking for the right word for her mouth to form. She's never been good at this, any of this. All her life has been military lines and shoving her feelings deep down into her boots, crushing them into the dirt. Get attached, get left behind; the law of Jyn Erso’s life. But Cassian has come back for her too many times, and she doesn't know why, but her selfish side doesn't ever want him to stop. “Thanks,” she finishes lamely, handing him a ration to cover her words.

Cassian doesn't say anything, but their fingers graze unblushingly when he takes the ration from her, and she thinks he understands.

 

.

.

.

 

“Do you regret it?” Cassian asks. It's slipping late into the night, and he's shrouded half in shadow. She's slumped against the wall, gritting her teeth against the throbbing of her leg that's only gotten worse.

“Helping the Alliance? No,” she says instantly, and is surprised to find herself meaning it. “My father wanted this. He fought for this.”

“He died for this,” he says quietly. Jyn squeezes her eyes shut, curls her fingers a little too tightly into the blanket sprawled across them.

“That wasn't you.”

He scoffs quietly. “Could have been. That was almost my finger on the trigger.”

“But it wasn't.”

And when she opens her eyes, he's looking at her like he can't believe she sees it so simply.

“Doesn't matter, anyway,” she continues, “because he's gone now. Makes no difference to me.”

“Except it does,” Cassian observes, and she doesn't like the way he looks at her all of a sudden. Like he knows what it’s like. Like he cares what it's like. “You think you’re all alone now.”

She says nothing, shrinks into her blankets and pretends to be asleep, hopes he’ll leave just like everyone else has. But she feels his fingers sliding in between hers, grabbing on just like on the beach.

“I used to think that too,” he says, and she clamps her mouth to stop herself from asking what that means, to stop herself from reliving that moment in the elevator, when she'd looked up at him, and for the first time in her life sincerely thought _we’re in this together._

 

.

.

.

 

She wakes up the next day covered in sweat, shivering slightly. She can't tell if it's the leg or the nightmares. Maybe both. Or maybe it's the way Cassian’s still next to her, chest rising up and down in his sleep.

He shouldn't be here. He should have left by now. His injuries would slow him down, but people always seem to find a way to leave Jyn behind, unwillingly or not. She swallows and focuses on his face. Sweating, like her. Still pale. Lips parched. But his breathing is coming a little easier, which is encouraging, considering just how much medicine she'd plastered on him yesterday.

Cassian opens his eyes, like he knows she was watching him. It occurs to her that maybe he hadn't even been asleep. She shifts, ready to run back into flight mode, ready to busy herself with plans for the future, for his health—but his hand reaches out, lingers on her arm.

“Stay here for a minute.”

“Cassian—”

“I'm fine, Jyn. Just a minute.”

“We have to start doing something. Our team could still be out there. The Imperials are still around, the plans—”

“Jyn,” he cuts in, smoothly. “I can't go anywhere right now, and I’m sure as hell not letting you into the line of fire without me. Give me a day or two. Hit me up with bacta. Then we leave.”

Everything she's been taught warns her to say no. A voice that sounds like Saw is telling her to _rebel_ , like she was born to do.

“Okay,” she relents instead, voice wavering.

“Just… Don’t leave without me,” he says. “Don't leave without someone to watch your back.”

Her brow furrows. “I wouldn't,” she says fiercely. “I won't. Trust goes both ways, remember?”

“All the way,” he quips, and she can't help but smile at him.

“Here,” she says, dislodging herself from his grip and pressing a ration bar into his hands. “You should eat something.”

He takes it without complaint and glances at her. “You eating, too?”

“I hate rations,” she says, but peels one open anyway, washes down the dry taste with a gulp of water. It's not that she doesn't like the taste, but that it reminds her of days spent at sixteen, carefully deciding her rations in the blaster turret and waiting for Saw to come back. Most days she can press through it, but back here, the wounds seem just that much fresher.

“Have you ever had a proper feast?” Cassian says absently. “As in, the best of the best. Made with heart.”

“If I have, I can't remember it,” says Jyn, eyes flickering over to the abandoned dinner table and trying to pair with her fuzzy, faded memories. “Best food I ever had was back at the Alliance base, I think.” She pauses. “You?”

“When I was a kid,” he says, and nothing more as they polish off the rations.

She wipes her hands on her trousers and all of a sudden, it strikes her how filthy they are. It seems stupid to be worrying about grime right now, when she's crawled through worse, but suddenly all she wants is to get rid of the smell of sea salt, to scrub the blood from underneath her fingernails and scrape the sand from her eyelashes. She wants to wash Scarif away, so fiercely it burns, and before she knows it she is on her feet.

“Jyn?” calls Cassian, alarm in his voice, and she doesn't look back at him as she rifles through the house.

“Hang on.” And when she returns, drops a bundle of clothes at his feet, he raises his eyebrows at her.

“Jyn,” he says again.

“The refresher still works,” she informs him. “I found some clothes for you.” _My father’s clothes_ , she doesn't say. “It's not ideal, but maybe it might reduce chance of infection. And you’ll feel better,” she adds. “Think you can clean up by yourself?”

She's not quite sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when he nods, smiling wryly. “If you help me get there.”

 

.

.

.

 

When she steps out of the refresher, relishing in the way her wet hair drips onto her clothes— _Lyra’s clothes,_ a painful stab reminds her—Cassian propped up on the bed where she'd left him He’s fumbling with a packet of bacta gel, gritting his teeth and muttering something she can't understand under his breath.

“Hey,” she says, crawling onto the mattress next to him and gently prying his fingers away. “Let me.” He concedes with a scowl, and she pulls up the edges of his shirt carefully. “Is it hurting worse?”

“No,” he mumbles, “I'm just anxious to leave. It isn't safe here.”

“Trust me, I don't like it either,” she says. Too many memories. She presses the bacta patch gently to his wound, focuses on the task so she doesn't have to look up at him when he makes the tiniest sigh of pain. “But we’ll be okay here. Just a little while longer, just like you said.” She smiles at him, half teasing. “I'll protect you.”

“Shouldn't have to,” he says darkly, and she reasons that his pain is conflicting his emotions. She presses him back into the pillows firmly, and doesn't move her hand from where she's holding the patch to his side.

“Tell me, Captain. Are you always this heroic?”

His lips twitch through the pain, in a grin that makes her rib cage tighten around her heart.

“Only for you, Jyn Erso.”

“Delirious,” she observes, rolling her eyes, and she pretends not to notice the way his eyes fix firmly on the steady drip of her hair onto his torso. He reaches out, presses her hair back behind her ear, and the path his fingers left leave a trail of fire. She ducks her head, notes his symptoms. Already, he looks a little more coloured, his lips less dry, his eyes a little brighter. He looks more like _Cassian_ , finally.

“This bacta works wonders,” she says, pleased, and he smiles at her again.

“I don't think it's the bacta.”

Her hand slips, her face slackens, just a little. She bites her lip, turns her head. But she can still see his reflection in the transparisteel of the window. Smugness in the eyes. _And a little something else_.

 

.

.

.

 

“We should have a funeral for them,” says Cassian out of the blue. Or maybe not so out of the blue. His gaze is fixed on hers, and he _is_ a spy. He's noticed the way she can't stop fumbling with her crystal, how uncomfortable she feels in the clothes that she still imagines smells like her mother.

“Who?” she asks anyway.

“Lyra and Galen. Rogue One—”

“No,” Jyn interrupts fiercely. “They're not dead. The others are still out there. It's more than just us.”

Cassian studies her. His eyes are dark. “How do you know?”

“Because the force wills it,” she says, thinking of Chirrut. If he is not here to share his eternal faith, then she will do it for him.

“Your parents, then,” Cassian says finally. “I'm guessing you didn't have a lot of time to have one for your mother, and your father—”

“My father was an Imperial,” Jyn interrupts, pressing into her kyber necklace hard enough to bruise. “The Alliance won't support that.”

“He built a flaw in it,” he reminds. “He's the reason we even have a chance. The rebellion owes that to him. And to you, too.”

“I owe you too,” she says without thinking. He looks surprised before he can school his expression into nonchalance, which makes her smile just a little. “For not pulling the trigger. For assembling those men.” She hesitates. “For not leaving me behind.”

Cassian shakes his head. “Is this why you're staying? Out of some obligation?”

“ _No_. No, Cassian.” She swallows; takes a deep breath. Her hand is inching closer to his of her own accord, interlocking into his fingers like magnets. He's watching her intently. She can't say it. She can't say it.

“Jyn,” he says quietly. His grip tightens. “You don't owe me anything.”

“I know,” she says absently. She's too busy studying the lines around his mouth, the flicker in his eyes. She wonders if that's the closest she'll ever come to saying it.

“Jyn—”

“I _know_ ,” she says again, and because she can't think of any other to way to convince him, she slides closer to him, props herself up on the bed and curls into his shoulder, pressed as tightly against him as she can manage. She likes to think that they are an entanglement of limbs, inextricably intertwined. She curls a hand into his shirt and his breath hitches a little.

“Did I hurt you?”

He shakes his head. “No, you're fine.” But she gets the faintest feeling he wouldn't tell her even if he was.

“You’ll tell me if it does though?” She's mumbling now, because he's warm and soft, and she's tired.

“I will.” Another lie, but her eyes have closed anyway.

 

,

.

.

 

She's warm when she wakes up, and there’s a weight around her waist that doesn't feel suffocating, which is a surprise in itself. Cassian's already blinking at her, and she frowns at him.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough,” he says smoothly, which makes her think that he's been up for longer than he's letting on.

“Right,” she says, and glances at him for a split second. There's something heavy in her mouth, something on the tip of her tongue. She doesn't know what to say. Or maybe she doesn't know how to say it.

“Did you sleep okay?”

“I did.” And she's surprised by it. The lull of usual nightmares have disappeared, even just for one night. The light streaming in from outside suddenly isn't so harsh anymore. It makes her feel just a bit warmer, curled up in the bed of the childhood home she'd fled, pressed up against Cassian. Her throat tightens suddenly, and she moves to touch his arm. “Cassian,” she says, forcing her voice to stay even, “you don't owe me anything either.”

“I know,” he says, and smiles at her, and just for a moment he loses the weathered, warbuilt look about him. Just for a second, and she sees the Cassian without the title, without the rebellion, and she sees the crinkle of his eyes and the tilt of her lips, and she wonders if he sees that in her too.

“Cassian,” she manages, but she still can't say it. Not yet. Instead, she presses just that much closer, focuses on his eyes rather than the way their foreheads press, the way their breaths mingle together. “You can owe me one thing. If you want.”

“Name it,” he says instantly, and her hand curls into the space between their chests.

“Don't die on me.”

His smile gets a little softer, then, in a way that shouldn't work on a seasoned spy—but _does_. It really does. “Okay.”

“Good,” she says firmly. “That's good.” He hasn't stopped looking at her, and suddenly she feels the desperate need to elaborate. “Because we’re in this together. Aren't we?"

“We are,” he agrees, and maybe it's the amusement in his eyes, or the serious promise behind his words, but something in her ribcage clicks (her heart, she thinks absently), and she reaches across those last few inches to kiss him.

He responds instantly, hand snaking up to her hair, fingers skimming across her neck. He's softer than she imagined; soft movements to complement a sharp jawline, and she doesn't smile into his mouth, because there are a lot of overwhelming feelings taking over presently, and only half of them that she can name, but there's something light that spreads through from her fingers to her toes anyway.

He makes a small noise and she yanks away instantly, hands finding the bottom of his shirt.

“Your injuries.”

“Don't care,” he mutters, eyes half closed.

“I do,” she says, and attempts to wriggle a bit away, but Cassian’s grip on her wrist is firm. Pleading.

“Jyn,” he says, “is this temporary? Or is it…?”

Her eyes close for a moment. She thinks of her mother, leaving her behind to protect her father. Her father himself, leaving her behind to protect her—and the rebellion, in a way. Saw, who'd left a blaster as a parting gift and never stayed, up until the very end, when staying was the thing that killed him. Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze, K-2S0, the endless list of people who have drifted in and then yanked themselves right out. Then she thinks of Cassian, with his dark mouth and his darker eyes, the way he'd yelled her name on Jedha, on Eadu, the way he'd crawled up several stories after previously falling down them just to see it through. The way she thought he'd be the last person she ever saw.

She opens her eyes. “Stay alive,” she tells him, “then we’ll see.” But it's a promise, and they both know it.

 

.

.

.

 

The sky is becoming pale purple when they both hear it. The unmistakable rumble of a ship landing. Jyn moves to her feet immediately, but Cassian grabs her shirt, his mouth pressed in a hard line.

“Don't go out there,” he says sharply.

“I have to see,” she hisses, fumbling with her blaster.

His eyes are dark. With worry, maybe. “You said I owed you. You owe me too. You go out there, you die.” _Alone_ , he doesn't say. “We do this together.”

It goes against every single instinct. Jyn fights, she doesn't _hide_. She fights, or she runs, but she never waits. But she can't leave Cassian, and he needs her to stay, so she grips the blaster tightly in her hands and kneels down; holds her breath

Footsteps come to the door. Jyn raises the blaster and points. Then, something unmistakable.

“This door appears to have been kicked in before. I believe that Jyn Erso is seventy-five percent more prone to fits of impulsiveness like this than the average human, so I would assume we've found the right place.”

The door slams open. K-2S0 is stooping to look through the door.

“Ah. There you are. It has been a great inconvenience trying to find you, you know.”

And all of a sudden, Bodhi spills through the doorway, eyes wide, smile shaky, _unbelieving_. Chirrut walks through right after, something like a knowing smile on his features, and Baze, who is right behind him, doesn't smile, but his grunt instantly lets Jyn know that he is relieved all the same.

“Hey,” she says, because she can't think of anything else to say through the relief, through her smile. She knows without looking that Cassian is smiling too.

“You leaving with us, little sister?” Baze asks, no preamble, no skirting, just how she likes it. She watches as K-2 and Bodhi go to help Cassian to his feet, and she resists the urge to hug everyone, simply because she isn't a hugger.

“Yeah,” she says instead, glancing at him and Chirrut. “I'm leaving with you.”

“Good,” Bodhi says, firmer than she's ever heard him, and Chirrut nods, still smiling.

“Very good.”

“Tolerable,” K-2 agrees as they all hobble towards the door.

Somehow, Cassian's hand finds hers, and she glances at him.

“Time to go home?” he asks. She squeezes his fingers, glances at the others, and shrugs a little.

“Think I already am.”

.

.

.

_I hope you know  
that you're my home _

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [perthshirekisses](http://perthshirekisses.tumblr.com)


End file.
